Originally Posted by deacongirl
Ultimately, the individual is literally thrust into a void: their social rationales fail to account for their experiences and no alternate explanations are satisfactory. During this phase, existential despair is the predominant emotion.

...

Dabrowski used to say that you must either fall back, move ahead or end negatively (suicide / psychoses).

I think despair has been my predominant emotion since about 1993.

No suicide or psychosis, though. Can't say that I fell back or moved ahead.